


Five Times Cisco was Inappropriately Turned on by Hartley (And One Time it was Very Appropriate Indeed)

by kitkatt0430



Series: The "Never Were" Verse [2]
Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Consent is Sexy, Exactly What It Says on the Tin, F/M, M/M, Pansexual Cisco Ramon, Takes place before and during "The Legends that Never Were", The Cisco/Kendra will be brief, The only kissing in this story is consensual, references to abusive situations (not between Hartley and Cisco though)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-05
Updated: 2018-05-23
Packaged: 2019-03-13 09:48:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13568031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kitkatt0430/pseuds/kitkatt0430
Summary: Chapter 1 - UST in the Workplace- Cisco deals with unwanted attraction to Hartley while working after hours.  Set pre-season 1.





	1. Inappropriate UST in the Workplace

Cisco had found Hartley to be attractive from day one.

The physicist was gorgeous, what with the artfully ruffled hair and the clothes that were definitely picked as much for how they flattered the man's body as they were for giving off a professional appearance... and the tortoiseshell glasses.  Cisco had never, ever noticed having a glasses kink before in his entire life (nor would he ever notice having one for anyone who wasn't named Hartley Rathaway, though it'd be years before he'd really notice the significance of that), but damn if those frames didn't draw his eyes to Hartley's face and... yeah.

There was definitely no lack of physical attraction for Cisco where Hartley was concerned.  Which is why it was such a shame the dude was a complete and utter jackass.

Okay, so Hartley had 'apologized' for his remarks about how long Cisco would last at STAR Labs.  After a month.  But that didn't stop the little jabs about dressing like a unpaid intern or some of the other bits of classist bullshit the other man spewed so thoughtlessly.  It wasn't like Cisco was breaking the STAR Labs dress code.  (Okay, he was just barely this side of it at all times, but if there was a problem then Dr. Wells would've said something, right?)

It didn't help that they were being made to work together all the damn time either.

Hartley ran three different projects.  One was a device he was working on with Ronnie and Caitlin (who were beyond awesome and definitely Cisco's favorite co-workers) that was some sort of medical scanner meant to be a safer, more effective alternative to x-ray machines.  Cisco didn't really know much about that one, though he'd helped Ronnie build a few parts for it during his orientation week.  The other two projects, however, Cisco was very much involved in, as both projects were really sub-projects for the accelerator.  One of those projects, the pipeline scanners meant to collect data when the accelerator came online, was winding down to a close soon and Hartley had a bug up his ass about some aspect of the prototype that predated Cisco's involvement.

Rathaway didn't want to go home until the damn thing was fixed to his exacting standards and Cisco wanted to go home on time for once this week, thus putting off fixing the scanner in the morning when he was fresh and well-caffeinated.  Which... okay, so Hartley had that Friday off work which meant that if he was going to be involved in the fixing of the scanner before the weekend, then that meant getting it done tonight, but... it did not actually need to be finished before the weekend.

They'd wound up in an argument, naturally, shouting at each other angrily even as they worked (fairly well, truth be told) to fix the prototype.

They had, eventually, settled the argument.  Hartley got his way and Cisco stayed late.  Then they had another argument, this time regarding the modified design.  Cisco mostly won this one, with Rathaway conceding that Cisco's insight was the reason why he was making Cisco stay late instead of Alec Jeffries, the other mechanical engineer on the project.  They had a third argument that started off as one thing - Cisco can't for the life of him remember what - but morphed into an angry debate over whose favorite _Star Trek Original Series_ episode was truly better.  ( _The Trouble with Tribbles_ , obviously, but Hartley insisted that  _A Taste of Armageddon_ was better.  They both agreed that _The Galileo Seven_ was an over-rated piece of crap... and they both agreed that their agreeing on anything was kind of weird.)

After the _Star Trek_ debate, they'd wound down into their own little worlds, each bent over a different piece of the scanner to rewire or otherwise reconfigure the pieces.  Unfortunately, Cisco's mind had latched onto a topic that it didn't want to let go of: Hartley Rathaway.

He kept thinking about how Hartley's eyes lit up when he was arguing passionately about something.  Hartley gestured a lot when arguing too, his hands waving wildly to punctuate certain words and occasionally reaching up to adjust glasses gone slightly (and by slightly he means entrancingly) askew.  Then there was Hartley's hair which had gone from stylishly tousled to a ridiculous disarray after about the second or third time he'd run a hand through it in frustration.  And there was Hartley's irritated mutterings in various languages whenever he did meticulous work - like right now - and he was frustrated.  (Cisco had learned pretty quickly that he had a heretofore unknown language kink; Hartley was not the polyglot Cisco would have chosen to learn about this kink from, but no one got to chose who they were, or weren't, attracted to and this stupid attraction of his to Rathaway was the perfect example.)

It wasn't until Hartley's pink tongue flicked out just the slightest bit to wet his lips that Cisco even realized just how... attentively he'd been watching the physicist work.  Arousal hit him hard, curling with insistent warmth low in his belly and radiating out to make him suddenly all too aware of his own body.  He could feel his face and neck flush while goosebumps raised along his suddenly too cold arms.

Cisco stood up abruptly, far too turned on to stay in the room any longer.  He needed a break, even if it was just to run to the break room for more coffee.

Making his excuses, Cisco stumbled out of Hartley's lab and into the hallway.  Most of the doors off the hallway were dark and locked, but the break room and the cafeteria still beckoned brightly.  Picking the break room, Cisco checked the coffee maker - the contents were cold and sludge like so he tossed it and started a new batch - and then settled on to the chair nearest the kitchenette.

Leaning his head back, Cisco took a few deep breaths.  In and out.  In and out...

Right, so Hartley was a physically attractive guy.  But Hartley was also a terrible, horrible option for a relationship because he had absolutely less than zero respect for Cisco.  And Cisco wasn't one for one night stands after that unfortunate string of ladies who'd used him to get to Dante during college.  Also... he thought Rathaway was dating someone.  Possibly a firefighter?  Anyway, the point was... he needed to stop lusting after his manager ASAP before Hartley Rathaway, who was actually quite observant, noticed something was amiss.

Easier thought than done, though.  Those skilled fingers were just so tantalizing to... no.  Nope.  Stop that now.

Cisco swatted himself on the nose.

The smell of freshly brewed coffee finally started to reach him and Cisco stood up, poured himself a cup, added a little cream and sugar, and stared balefully at the styrofoam cup of steaming hot goodness.  It was too hot and would definitely burn him if he tried to drink it now.

And it was definitely not a metaphor for what would happen if he tried actually kissing Hartley.  Nope.  Not at all.

(Cisco had a feeling his dreams tonight were going to be... interesting and he was going to be very glad not to have to deal with Rathaway when he got back to STAR in the morning.)

But, eventually the coffee became drinkable and Cisco slinked back into Hartley's lab.  He's managed to get his libido to cool off a little (at least its no longer shouting 'that one, that one there, the asshole who mocks your favorite shirts every week, you should totally pin him to the table, put a hickey on his neck, and...' and he really needed to stop anthropomorphizing his sex drive), enough that his most definitely aren't immediately drawn to the gorgeous ass that greets him when he walks back into the room.

Seriously, Rathaway is bent over his workstation reaching for something that had rolled awkwardly into the little gap between the table and the wall.  It's probably a screwdriver, but Cisco is having a hard time... difficult time moving beyond the sight of 'gorgeous ass right there'.

He needs to find a girlfriend or a boyfriend or even a friend-with-benefits. 

The sound of a phone ringing startles them both.  Cisco manages not to drop his coffee while he returns to the scanner board he'd been working on before the sudden onset of inappropriate arousal while Hartley jumps, stands up too quickly, curses in what sounds like German when he nearly falls on his butt, and then takes two long strides to reach his ringing cell phone.

"Hello?" he questions absently, phone to his ear.  He frowns at whatever he hears.  Then... "we've been planning this for weeks.  Can't you..." he trails off and then sighs, "I can't, Chip.  You know I can't.  If the medical scanner is to go into the next phase of development then I have to... well, gee, I don't know, I mean its not like its the only damn thing I've been talking about when it comes to work the last few weeks," he drawled sarcastically, "and it was the reason I gave for taking a long weekend this week instead of next week.  And the week after that is your sister's birthday, so unless you're thinking of skipping out on her... that was sarcasm, Chip."  Hartley had, at this point, slipped out into the hall, but Cisco could still hear his end of the argument.  "I don't know, call him back tell him you can't do it and he was an ass for asking you in the first place?"

There's a long beat of silence and then Hartley tells him, "yeah.  Fine.  I'll cancel the reservation.  Whatever."  He hung up, came back inside, slumped into his chair, and buried his face in his hands, taking long, slow, deep breaths.

"Are you okay?" Cisco heard himself ask.  He tried not to kick himself for sticking his nose some place it was surely to be cut off... and that metaphor was getting away from him.

"Yeah.  Peachy."  Hartley sighed.  "You know... you were right.  Its late.  It's..." he checked his watch and winced, "it's going on seven thirty and... I don't know about you, but I'm starving.  Let's just... lets just pick this back up tomorrow morning."

"But... you've got tomorrow off," Cisco objected inanely.

Hartley tossed his phone onto the lab station.  "My plans just went up in smoke.  So... why bother taking the day off?"

No, instead he'd just lurk around taking his bad mood out on everyone else.

"Take a personal day," Cisco advised.  "Seriously, you've been ridiculously stressed all month, but this week?  You've been more laid back because you've been looking forward to this long weekend getaway.  So what if you're boyfriend is flaking out on you?  Go anyway.  Treat yourself.  Everyone else will thank you when you come back on Monday and aren't snapping at anyone who dares to breathe loudly in your presence."

"I guess I have been kind of..."

"An angry dragon?"

Hartley actually looks a little amused.  "Well... its been a while since I last visited Starling city and Tommy wouldn't mind letting me use his guest room at the last minute..."

"We've got maybe an hour at most left of work on this," Cisco powered on.  "So we break for dinner - maybe that new Thai place down the road? - and then finish up.  Then you don't have to worry about anything aside from confirming your friend really will let you crash at his place for the weekend and I can leave early tomorrow to make up for burning the midnight oil tonight."

"Pro-tip," Hartley told him, standing back up.  "You can convince me to do just about anything with the promise of good Thai food."

Cisco actually laughed.  Then he frowned again, because Hartley was frowning deeply at him.  "What?"

"There's a hole in the seam where your sleeve attaches to the rest of the shirt.  Left sleeve," he clarified when Cisco looked to the right.

When he checked the left, Cisco almost didn't see it at first.  But then he did and he swore softly.  "I love this shirt," he muttered, already thinking about where his sewing kit was and which color thread he'd need to fix the seam.

"Okay, that's it," Hartley burst out in frustration.  "I have to ask, is everything okay with you?  Because I've been trying to figure this out for a while, but you take offense to every thing I say some days so you can be impossible to talk to."

"Is... what?"  Cisco stared at him, startled and a touch wide-eyed.  "Of course everything is okay, why would...?"

"The way you dress," Hartley held up a hand to forestall Cisco's inevitable offended response.  "Either you're just one of those people who gets so sentimentally attached to their clothes that you don't notice when its gone threadbare, too short, or both... and that shirt is both, by the way.  You can fix the hole in the seam, but the shirt itself is about one more dryer run away from strangling you with the collar.  Or... or there is something wrong and the way you dress is a result of that something wrong.

"I'm asking because Dr. Wells never will.  He wouldn't notice if you showed up to work in a toga with fairy wings, except to remind you that the wings would get in the way of doing work in the pipeline and that you should leave them at your desk before heading down there.  And he wouldn't notice if something was wrong in an employee's personal life unless he gets a call to come pick that employee up from the hospital.  So... which is it?"

That was... Hartley was worried about his... family circumstances?  Home life?  That was what all his comments had been about?  He'd been... digging for information, trying to see if Cisco was just obliviously in love with his meme-shirts or...

Hartley was all but straight up asking if Cisco was in an abusive situation.

Cisco blinked, startled and kind of weirded out.  "I guess I'm just kind of oblivious about my clothes," Cisco finally said.  "Everything's fine... really."

Nodding slowly, Hartley pinned him with an unreadable look and then gestured to the door, relaxing some.  "Thai food is calling my name, then.  Hurry up."

* * *

Cisco hated to admit it, but he couldn't get Hartley's comments about his shirt out of his head for the rest of the evening.  He selected his shirt the following morning with extra care, dismayed to find several more of his precious t-shirts were in worse condition than he realized.  He had far too many to add to his quilting pile than he was comfortable with (what with how exacting he was about his costumes for the various fan conventions that rolled through town throughout the year, how had he missed all of this???) and he came to the uncomfortable realization that most of those shirts were either from Senior year of high school or Freshman year of college.  He couldn't even remember the last time he'd done any real clothes shopping since the last of his hand-me-downs from Dante had abruptly stopped fitting after his last growth spurt.

In the end he was left with no real choice but to go clothes shopping that weekend.  More t-shirts were a must... but maybe a few more 'professional' shirts wouldn't be amiss?  Not that he was giving in to Rathaway's 'unpaid intern' jabs or anything.

And if, a few weeks later, he happened to point Hartley at Virginia when she showed up to work with a hand print on her arm underneath the unseasonably long sleeves of her shirt and a dark smudge on her cheek that was poorly hidden under makeup, well... maybe Hartley Rathaway wasn't so awful to work with after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, naturally writing this chapter gave me a 'what-if' plot bunny idea for a non-powered AU and... I dunno, it might show up, it might not.
> 
> Anyway, I see some of Hartley and Cisco's early clashing being in part culture clash; Hartley knows what its like to be the rich kid and what its like to be the homeless kid faking everything being okay, but not what its like to be a younger sibling in a middle class family. Meanwhile Cisco's thing with the shirts is just... he's used to hand-me-downs from Dante which don't necessarily fit him flatteringly to begin with, so he's in the mindset of 'trendy clothes don't look good on me' when really it should be 'clothes that flatter Dante do not necessarily flatter me'. So the clothes Cisco has now are all things he picked out himself and have sentimental value to him (also totally picked out to spite Dante's sense of style), but he doesn't always register when he's outgrown a shirt because he loves his shirts... and then suddenly he's left wondering when a particular shirt started riding so high on his waist, especially when he has to raise his arms to reach something, or why the collar is so uncomfortable today.
> 
> Thus Hartley has been trying, like the awkward little porcupine that he is, to make sure that Cisco, despite their mutual dislike, isn't actually in a bad situation at home because he knows that ill-fitting clothes can be, but aren't necessarily, a sign. But Cisco, lacking context for Hartley's comments and questions assumes that he's being rudely mocked by the rich brat when that's not always the case (though the unpaid intern snipes are totally rude and uncalled for).
> 
> Also, Cisco totally quilts. That's a thing now. Caitlin has somewhere in her apartment an adorable t-shirt quilt made up of quilt squares she and Ronnie picked out mixed in with re-cycled t-shirts that sport memes from their favorite shows. Barry eventually gets one of his own as well (Star Trek themed, of course). Hartley doesn't have one yet, but its in progress. There was going to be a quilt for Dr. Wells, but Cisco burned that one; it was cathartic.


	2. Inappropriate UST, Vampires, and Chocolate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While hosting the couch surfing, semi-reformed Pied Piper, Cisco infers a little about Hartley's bad experiences with romance when an episode of _Buffy the Vampire Slayer_ upsets his guest. (Also, Cisco learns that Hartley is a sleep cuddler way sooner than Hartley realized.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't remember when Felicity got the code name Overwatch. But we're going to pretend that it was sometime before this chapter is set, because her not having a code name for the coms is just bad security.
> 
> WARNING - Hartley gets triggered in this chapter for some of the past abuse he's gone through. He does not discuss it with Cisco, but his reaction makes it pretty clear to Cisco what is probably going on with Hartley. Also have in there the descriptions/dialogue of a few scenes from an episode of _Buffy The Vampire Slayer_ that dealt heavily (and not necessarily well) with the topic of physically and emotionally abusive relationships.

Cisco hummed to himself as he finished making the popcorn and poured two glasses of root beer.  Hartley had stowed the dishes in the dishwasher while Cisco had been putting the leftover Thai food away and then the physicist had moseyed over to flip through the fabric pile Cisco kept by his sewing machine.  It was all weirdly domestic, if one ignored the fact that they barely tolerated each other on a good day and that the silver objects on Hartley's wrists were a combination of electronic handcuffs and tracking devices, not jewelry.

Still, they were both nerds.  Surely they could manage to get along for one night.

Well... more than one night.  Cisco had volunteered to host Hartley for his first week away from STAR Labs.  It was only fair, after all.  He was the one who'd insisted the loudest that Hartley shouldn't stay in the shit-hole condemned apartment he'd been squatting in before his ill thought out attack on Dr. Wells and Barry.  (Okay, so what Cisco knew of Hartley's plan was actually kind of brilliant, if desperate, and probably would've worked; who would have thought Hartley would be rash enough to use his hearing aids for explosives?)  Not that Caitlin or Barry had, even for a second, argued with him on the subject.  Joe hadn't hesitated to offer up his guest room either. 

The original plan Cisco had put forth that morning was for releasing Hartley from their 'custody' entirely, having never been comfortable with the pipeline to begin and growing increasingly less comfortable every time they put someone like Shawna or Hartley in there.  What had sounded like a good idea to start with - finding a permanent method for containing criminal meta's powers and/or rehabilitating the inmates - had soured pretty fast.  They'd barely scratched the surface in researching all the different known meta powers and had yet to find a method of reversing the process so that the super powered villains could go back to being relatively less harmful criminals.  And rehabilitation wasn't happening at all.  Hartley was the one they interacted with the most... because they needed his intellect.

Hartley had gone about drawing attention to Dr. Wells' screw up with the accelerator the wrong way.  Even knowing what he did now, about Dr. Wells knowing the high chance of not just failure but catastrophe, Cisco found Hartley's plan to badly injure and humiliate the Flash to stick it to Dr. Wells to be... utterly repugnant.  But Hartley had save Cisco and Caitlin's lives the day the Time Wraith attacked, wrecking his gloves in the process and giving up any chance of revenge.  Dr. Wells could claim that Hartley had been acting out of self preservation all he liked, he hadn't been in that cell with them.  When Cisco gave Hartley his gloves back, Hartley had taken a step forward, placing himself between them and the Wraith.  It had meant something.  And it was Hartley, not Dr. Wells, who'd refused to give up hope on separating Ronnie and Professor Stein, Dr. Wells' epiphany only happening after he'd given up and wheeled out of the room. Not to forget, either, that it was Hartley who'd faced down the military to help Barry when he got turned into a pin-cushion during Eiling's highly illegal attempt to kidnap Ronnie at Jitters.

So pretty much everyone had actually been on board with releasing Hartley except for Dr. Wells, who'd talked them into something more like house arrest when it was clear no one was going to accept continued pipeline incarceration.  Hence the tracking handcuffs.  (Cisco's design, of course, and he flattered himself to think that it might take Hartley a few days to figure out how to ditch them.)  Of course, they'd won concessions from Dr. Wells, too.  Hartley's old job had been re-instated, with back pay and a very insincere apology for firing him to cover up the safety issues.  (Hartley had retaliated with something presumably sharp and cutting in Latin, as he actually managed to get Dr. Wells to flinch and go a little pale.)  After all, Hartley deserved some sort of compensation for his wrongful termination and the trauma he suffered as a direct result of the accelerator exploding.

Then, of course, they'd intended to just let him go home to his apartment.  Only it turned out that Hartley had been living homeless for the last few months leading up to his attack on Rathaway industries and the place where he had been sleeping was literally condemned.  Hartley had made some flippant remarks about going broke being all to easy with the massive medical bills he'd wracked up without insurance to help pay for his hearing problems, clearly trying to deflect their collective, horrified attention.  In fact, he'd tried to argue that he'd be okay there, on his own, and he could take the bus to the lab in the morning just fine.  Because of course he did, the prideful ass.  (He'd also named the rats, which would've been hilarious if it weren't actually really sad.)

Obviously, though, Hartley lost the argument about where he'd be staying.  Caitlin had drawn up a rotating schedule of when Hartley would stay with at their various homes and then Cisco used Hartley's professed love of Thai food to shut the other man up long enough to drag him, and his suitcase full of belongings, back to Cisco's comfy, warm apartment.  Then he'd pulled up _Buffy_ on Netflix and picked up his re-watch where he'd left it the night before, at the second episode of season 3.  They'd eaten in surprisingly companionable silence during that episode, then paused before the next one could start auto-playing in order to do the weirdly domestic clean up.

Popcorn and drinks ready, Cisco dropped them off on the coffee table before heading over to pull Hartley away from the sewing station.

"You're making a quilt?" Hartley asked hesitantly, having found the grid paper Cisco had sketched out his design and numbered accordingly.

The numbers matched up to slips of paper he'd pinned to the fabric, so that he could sew the pieces together in exactly the right order.  When he was done, it'd be a queen sized quilt; the third Cisco original.  The first one, along with the pillow shams he'd started as tests to see if he even liked quilting, were on his bed in the other room.  The second was somewhere in Caitlin's apartment, an engagement gift he'd made for her and Ronnie.  This one was for Barry and would, baring some major sewing disaster, be finished in time for the speedster's birthday.

"Yeah.  I like sewing; started just making simple costumes for comic con and the like during high school, but I guess I really caught the sewing bug.  First it was just more complicated costumes for the cons and Halloween, but now I'm, like, the official costumer of vigilantes."

"Vigilantes plural or just Barry?" Hartley asked dryly.

"Uh, well, I've got designs for an upgraded suit for the Arrow that Fel... er... Overwatch is really excited about springing on him.  So it's almost plural."  Cisco huffed and rolled his eyes.  "Anyway.  Quilting turned out to be a lot of fun.  Gives my mind something to wind down on after a difficult day at work."

"I like cooking and baking for the same reasons," Hartley admitted quietly, putting down the quilt blueprint.  "I haven't had a kitchen to do either in for months and you have no idea how much I want to scour your fridge and pantry for the ingredients for brownies from scratch."

"While I would not object, I think the best my kitchen can manage are box brownies."  He grinned as Hartley shuddered.

"Box brownies are basically just chocolate cake.  Which isn't bad, mind you, its' just... they're not real brownies."

"You're a brownie snob," Cisco informed the other man.

"I'm capable of making brownies that put fudge to shame," Hartley bragged, smirking with an expression that had infuriated Cisco innumerable times in the lab.  "Of course I'm a brownie snob."

Cisco grabbed a blank pad off the sewing table and shoved it into Hartley's hands along with a pen.  "List the ingredients.  I'll get them for you tomorrow."  Hartley only smirked like that when he knew he was irrefutably correct.

Hartley's smirk softened to a more self-conscious look.  "If I throw in ingredients for dinner too?"

"Then I will happily let you cook dinner and bake me brownies and I will brag to Caitlin such that she will demand brownies of her own.  As will Barry, though by then you'll be sick of brownies and be glad to leave the whole batch to his speedster metabolism."

Hartley made a quiet sound of amusement and then headed over into the kitchen, poking around Cisco's fridge and pantry and writing down stuff down on his pad.  Cisco let the other man do his thing while he settled onto the couch and pressed play on the episode.  Hartley would rejoin when he was ready.

"So, you've actually got everything necessary to make a half-batch of brownies," Hartley announced as he dropped onto the couch beside Cisco.  "And how does cranberry-apple chicken and cheesy mashed sweet potatoes sound for dinner tomorrow."

"Amazing."  Cisco side-eyed the other man a little and then added, "and like maybe I should be asking for cooking lessons.  My cooking skills are basically Hamburger Helper and casseroles."  Dante had gotten the chef gene of the two of them and had loved spending time with mamá, cooking and baking in the kitchen.  Yet another reason why Dante was the obvious family favorite.

"How about we start with a baking lesson after this episode and if I'm not feeling homicidal afterwards, then we'll see about turning tomorrow's dinner into a lesson," Hartley responded, taking a drink of his soda and snatching up a handful of popcorn.

"You must really want some brownies, huh?"  Cisco teased, but there was no reaction from Hartley who was staring a bit blankly at the screen.

 _"He was my first,"_ Buffy was saying on screen.  _"I loved him and then he..."_

 _"Changed,"_ the school counselor filled in for her.

"Hartley?"  Cisco frowned at being ignored.  They'd been having a nice conversation for a change and then this?  What the hell?

_"Yeah."_

_"He got mean."_

_"Yes."_

_"And you didn't stop loving him."_

"Hartley," Cisco repeated, touching the other man's shoulder.  Hartley jumped in response, flinching away like... "Hey," Cisco pulled back immediately, keeping his voice gentle.  "Are you okay?"

"Y-yeah."  Hartley took a deep breath, then let it out slowly, his posture forcibly relaxing.  "I'm fine.  Sorry.  Got a little lost in my thoughts there.  You were saying?"

"Just really looking forward to trying those brownies," Cisco said lightly, leaning back into the couch.

Hartley made a noncommittal response - a far cry from his enthusiasm mere moments earlier - and he too leaned back, hands clenched around his glass of root beer, eyes glued back to the TV screen.

Cisco frowned, glancing from Hartley to the show and back again.  Was it the episode that was bothering him or something else?  Hartley seemed to relax - genuinely relax - after a few minutes, though, and Cisco let the show capture his attention again.

But then came the scene where two new characters - mauve shirts to be sure - named Debbie and Pete went inside one of the school supply closets to make out, only for Pete to notice a mostly empty jar of fluorescent green goo.

 _"What is that?"_ Pete asked.

Debbie giggled.  _"Nothing,"_ she said.  _"Kiss me."_

_"No.  Debbie, you did not drink that, did you?"_

_"Drink it?"_ There was more nervous laughter and Cisco's eyes wandered over to Hartley again.  

He was looking a little tense again.

_"You know I didn't."_

_"Debbie, what's going on?"_

The scene cut back to Buffy, who discovered the nice, if weird, school counselor was dead.

"You know," Cisco mused absently, "I'd forgotten about him, but she was going to ask him for help and she chose to become a school counselor herself later on.  Guess he had a pretty big impact on her despite only meeting her the once."

"I think I'd forgotten this episode entirely," Hartley muttered.

There was an obvious commercial break cut between Buffy seeing the counselor's body and the return to Debbie and Pete, who picked up the bottle of green goo.

_"So this bottle just... jumped out of the cabinet and spilled on its own?"_

_"of course not.  I... I was trying to get rid of it."_

_"You were trying to get rid of it?"_

_"To help you.  You know how you get."_

Pete was breathing heavier now, looking angrier as he spoke.  _"You think this has anything to do with how I get?"_

_"Well, when you drink it..."_

_"When I drink it, nothing, Debbie.  Nothing!"_   Debbie flinched away from Pete... not unlike how Hartley had flinched earlier.  _"I don't need this anymore, okay?  I am way, way past that now."_   He slammed the bottle back onto the shelf.

Hartley sucked in a harsh breath, looking pale.  Cisco glanced over at the controller.  Should he turn the episode off or... should he say something first?

 _"You see?"_   Pete started throwing bottles of green goo on the floor, breaking the jars with the impact... Hartley flinching with each one.  _"You see?!  No more!  You could pour out everything I made and it wouldn't help.  And you wanna know why?"_

Pete grabbed Debbie by the arms and she whimpered in fright.  Hartley made a little frightened noise of his own and... that was it.

Cisco reached for the controller only for it to drop off the far side of the table.

 _"You wanna know why?!  Because all it takes now is you, Debbie.  You and your stupid, grating voice!"_   And with that last shout, Pete began to turn into a visibly monstrous version of himself.

Cisco scrambled off the couch and around to where the controller had fallen.

_"You're the reason I started the formulas in the first place, to be the man you wanted!  And you pay me back how?  By whoring around with other guys and taunting me!"_

_"No!  I don't!  I don't even look!"_

Had the damn thing rolled under the table?  How did it even manage that?

There was a sound on the screen of Pete smacking Debbie around.  _"Is that something your shrink taught you, Debbie?  Huh?  Huh?  To share?  To communicate?  To piss me off?!"_

Finally, Cisco's hand found the controller under the side table and he fished it out.  As Pete hit Debbie again, Cisco paused the episode, the screen freezing on Debbie's terrified face as she cowered on the floor beneath her boyfriend.

"Hartley, are you okay?"  Cisco asked helplessly, sitting back down on the couch beside him slowly and aiming for as non-threatening as possible.

"I'm fine," Hartley responded sharply, breathing a little too harshly.

"Right.  It's just... you're shaking."  Which he was.  "So I'm a little worried."  Cisco hit the back button, dumping them out of the episode and back onto the main Netflix menu.

He's not sure he'll ever be able to watch that episode again without associating it with Hartley quietly freaking out.

Cisco wanted to be annoyed that Rathaway is ruining _Buffy_ , but he can't be.  Not when he's starting to realize that the reason, once upon a time, Hartley had not-so-subtly inquired about Cisco's home life was because Hartley himself had been abused.

"It's nothing.  You... you didn't have to stop the episode," Hartley grumbled, looking away.

"Look... I'm not asking you to talk about it, alright?  But that episode was dragging up something bad for you and you're pretty clearly not okay.  So yes, I did have to stop the episode."  He paused a beat and then said, "we can watch something else or just shut it down for the night."  He held out the controller to Hartley.  "You pick."

Hartley stares back for a long moment, but Cisco doesn't waver and, eventually, Hartley plucks the controller out of his hands.  "I really am fine," Hartley insisted, even as he started scrolling through Cisco's queue.  He eventually settled on _Star Trek: The Next Generation_ and let it start auto-playing from the last episode Cisco had watched, putting them on a particularly light hearted episode where Picard, Guinan, Ro Laren, and Keiko O'Brien are all de-aged to children and have to retake the ship from Ferengi invaders.

Cisco can recognize the plot even before the de-aging even happens and he figures Hartley does too from the way he breathes out in shaky relief.  When the younger actors appeared on the transporter pad, Cisco mused, "do you think there's a meta out there who can de-age people?"

"I hope not," Hartley replied.  "Puberty sucked the first time, I can't imagine it going any better with a second try."

"Point.  It's just, you know, time travel is real.  So now I have to wonder how many other sci-fi tropes could happen.  We had one guy who could create copies of himself that he could control, like a hive mind.  But when he died, all the copies disappeared.  They were real enough to hurt Barry, but didn't have enough ontological inertia that they could exist with him dead... so where did all that mass come from and disappear to?  It still bothers me to no end."

"You realize Barry's control of his powers is largely psychological, right?  His food intake, while ridiculously higher than everyone's, is still low compared to the energy expenditure he outputs and his top speed - and ability to perceive time at that speed - are pretty clearly connected to his self confidence.  The more confident he is in himself..." Hartley trailed off.  "As a physicist, that bothers me."

"Yeah, I noticed all of that too.  I haven't mentioned it to Barry yet, though, because I don't want him spontaneously needing to shell out even more money for food all because what if making him aware causes him to suddenly stop being able to gather that excess energy from wherever he's been getting it from.  At the same time, I want to mention it to him so Caitlin and I can ask to study it so that we can help him better understand whats going on with himself.  The whole thing is frustrating and nonsensical."

"My own hearing doesn't make complete sense either," Hartley admitted.  "I can dampen sound all I like, but I still wind up with sensory overload on bad days."

"So... maybe you're not just hearing with your ears."  Cisco shrugged when Hartley gave him a sharp look.  "You've concentrated on your implants as ways to bring your hearing down to tolerable levels, right?  But... metas tend to be changed in weird ways, not just the obvious.  So... maybe your brain is processing auditory input from more than just your ears now."

Hartley didn't respond for a long while, so Cisco let the subject drop.  The silence lasted until the hilarious scene where young Picard feigns a temper tantrum demanding to see his father, Riker, and the 'he's my number one dad' line... 

"All the other metas you've encountered, they've all had some sort of control over their abilities, haven't they?"  Hartley asked, his tone dull.

"Yeah."  Even Ronnie and Stein, despite their bad beginning, had control over their powers.  All the stabilizer they used now did was make sure they merged as equals or not at all.

"But I don't."  Hartley crossed his arms over his chest, sinking down into the couch some.  It was a defensive pose.  "I had a pre-existing hearing condition before... and then I hit my head really hard that night.  As in, badly enough I had a mild concussion and it took a while before my memories of that night were more than fuzzy impressions."  He paused a beat, then added, "I thought at first this was just... physical trauma accelerating a problem I already knew was coming.  My parents tried to fix me when I was a kid, but there were complications and my hearing was never completely right... and I knew one day, in the far off future, I was going to need hearing aids.  So the constant tinnitus wasn't unexpected.  The extreme pain?  I didn't..." he looked down, biting his lip for a brief second and Cisco was a bit discomfited to feel want at that sight.

But that want was dull and ignorable, the consequence of seeing someone he found physically attractive in a vulnerable state and wanting to make it better.  Or, you know, kiss it better.  Which, even if they weren't... well not rivals any more, but whatever the hell they were, it would not be appropriate.

"Do you think that if you hadn't hit your head that night, you'd be able to control your hearing?"  Cisco asked quietly.

Hartley nodded.  "I do.  There were... there were MRIs taken and my inner ears are both pretty damaged.  I was released from the hospital with regular hearing aids and appointments with a shrink I never bothered to show up for.  They thought anything abnormal about my hearing was psychological.  I knew it wasn't.  I think... I think the times when I get sensory overload even with the hearing aids... whatever ability I should have had to control my hearing is trying to work and instead it just makes things worse."

Cisco frowned a little harder because... he had no idea what to say.  Every meta's powers were different - unique save for Barry and the Reverse Flash - so even if Cisco had abilities of his own, he doubted he'd be able to say anything particularly useful.  Hartley had spent about a year with these abilities already, one of the very first metas to have his powers activate, and... if he thought his abilities were somehow broken...

What could anyone say to that?

"I'm sorry you had to go through all that alone."

"If I weren't such an asshole, I wouldn't have," Hartley muttered.

Which... not much Cisco could say about that either.

"Yeah, well, you're stuck with us now.  You know, if you talked with Caitlin about this she'd jump at the chance to help you out.  Especially after how much you helped her and Ronnie."

Hartley hummed thoughtfully.  "Worth a shot.  At least she won't dismiss me as being delusional."

Fuck every single asshole who'd told Hartley that bullshit.  Seriously.  Every single one who'd failed at their damn jobs.  Cisco shivered slightly at the sudden, unexpected protective anger that sparked in his chest.  Hartley was an asshole; no denying that.  But Hartley deserved to be treated so much better than he had been, no matter what his bad attitude was like.

"You mentioned brownies?"

It was a blatant redirection of their conversation, but one they were both grateful for.  Hartley paused the show and stood up, stretching while Cisco grabbed the popcorn.  He'd have to cover it up and finish it later.  (Also he reminded himself that he really shouldn't stare at the way Hartley's shirt hitched up, showing off the taut stomach of a guy who was very much in shape...)

"Alright, so we'll need 3 ounces baking chocolate, six tablespoons butter, two eggs..."  Hartley rattled off the recipe, pulling out things like the sauce pan for melting chocolate over the stove and a couple of mixing bowls.  "You should go ahead and mix the dry ingredients and, um..." he pointed over to a lower cabinet near Cisco's leg, "I think I saw an 8x8 pan in there when I was snooping earlier."

Nodding, Cisco pulled out the pan, listening as Hartley started pre-heating the oven.  Retrieving the canola spray, Cisco used that on the pan and set it aside, snitching the biggest of the mixing bowls to combine the sugar, flower, baking powder, and salt in.  "Okay, so do I need to sift this or...?"

"If you want to," Hartley said.  By then he was distracted, intently stirring the chocolate and butter over the stove, occasionally tweaking the dial for the heat.  "With brownies, its not really necessary, though.  Um, okay, so come take a look over here.  So, I started the heat under the sauce pan kind of high because I'm impatient.  To keep the chocolate from burning, I have to keep turning down the heat once it starts melting and keep stirring so the chocolate doesn't stagnate and burn on the bottom.  It's really a better idea to do it over a consistent, low heat, but... like I said, I'm impatient."

Cisco couldn't help the grin or the laugh that followed it.  "So you're telling me to do as you say, not as you do?"

"Eh, if you keep enough attention on the melting chocolate, then you'll get the hang of the impatient method quickly enough," Hartley shrugged dismissively then pulled Cisco over to swap the spoon he was using to stir over to Cisco's hand.  "Hey look, you're getting shoved into the deep end," he said with a teasing smirk.  Tweaking the temperature dial again, Hartley added, "okay, so you shouldn't need to bring the heat any lower than that.  Just keep stirring until the mixture is smooth."

Sticking his tongue out at Hartley for the 'deep end' comment, he said, "how will I know if its burning?"

"If it starts fast boiling instead of the occasional bubble here and there," Hartley replied.  "You'll do fine.  I'll check back once I've added the vanilla and eggs."  Then Hartley disappeared from Cisco's side.

After a long moment of silence, Cisco piped back up with, "so if the baking chocolate gets melted down and added to make the batter, then what are the white chocolate chips for?"

"Variety?  It gets added to the batter last and can help break up the texture some after baking is done.  Though... if you're not much of a baker, why'd you have baking squares and white chocolate chips anyway?"  Hartley sound a little confused as he peered over Cisco's shoulder.  "Oh, that's good.  You can take it off the heat now, but keep stirring.  It needs to cool a little, but the heat in the pan can still burn it right now so..."

"Right, keep stirring," Cisco muttered, dutifully moving the pan to another burner and turning off the one they'd been using.  The spoon kept moving.  "I uh, I had a date where I tried doing the fancy chocolate fondue thing, but it... I pretty much burned everything and the strawberries had started going fuzzy despite having been bought the day before and... it was just a comedy of errors, really.  Anything I could screw up?  I did screw up.  There was no second date."

"That sucks.  I've had dates go bad like that, too.  One time the plumbing in my apartment building backed up during a date.  Nothing compliments a 'romantic candle lit dinner' quite like a toilet over flowing in the bathroom."

Cisco snorted in amusement.  "Chocolate ready to add yet?"

"Should be fine."

They poured the melted chocolate into the rest of the mix and then Hartley stirred it all up, adding the white chocolate chips in and then trading the whisk for a rubber spatula.  "Here, use this to evenly spread the brownie mix in the pan."

Cisco nodded and did as he was told, scraping as much of the brownie mix into the 8x8 pan as he could.  Then they popped it into the oven, set the timer, put away the baking supplies in the dishwasher, and returned to the couch to keep watching _Star Trek_.  The mixing bowl did come with them, though, along with two spoons so they could further scrape away the last remnants of mix left behind.

* * *

Cisco startled awake when Hartley's head landed on his shoulder.  Though he'd been more dozing than asleep, so Cisco managed not to jolt the other man awake at the same time he did.

Instead of getting up, Cisco sat there sleepily, regarding his temporary housemate with curiosity.  They'd known each other for two years and Cisco had thought he had Hartley Rathaway all figured out.

Rathaway was a spoiled, rich, white guy used to getting everything he wanted and was Dr. Wells' pet favorite who'd eventually moved on to bigger and better things than STAR Labs when that favoritism started ebbing.  He'd known vaguely that Hartley'd been disowned for being gay, spent a lot of time volunteering at shelters, and had a boyfriend who could be flaky at times about time commitments, but ultimately Cisco had a shallow view of who Hartley was and had convinced himself that shallow view was all there was.  Only... Hartley hadn't moved on to 'bigger and better things'.  He'd been fired... for being more ethical than Wells - which made it a little tragic, actually, that Hartley had ended up resorting to violence to prove Wells wasn't so innocent himself.  And now Cisco knew things like... Hartley was a little dorky, had a cute smile, loved baking, and had clearly been abused by at least one of his previous romantic partners.

Hopefully not flaky-guy because Cisco would never, ever forgive himself if it turned out that Hartley had been checking up on Cisco's well being when they'd hated each other and Cisco had been too oblivious to see that it was Hartley who'd needed help escaping an abusive situation instead.

Idly, Cisco reached up to pet Hartley's hair, blushing slightly when the sleeping man sighed - a surprisingly contented noise - and snuggled in closer, tucking himself more tightly against Cisco's side.

Well, who'd have thought, Hartley Rathaway was a sleep cuddler.

A physically attractive sleep cuddler who felt warm and solid in the best way and smelled really nice and whose hand clutching Cisco's shirt was... dangerously close to a certain part of Cisco's anatomy that was starting to show interest...

Hastily, Cisco extricated himself from Hartley's grasp and slid off the couch to the floor in an ungainly heap.

Making cranky, disappointed noises, Hartley latched on to a couch pillow and continued to sleep soundly... his shirt sneaking upwards to show off his very nice abs again.

Licking his lips, Cisco wished Hartley's powers were just about anything other than enhanced hearing. 

It wasn't like Cisco wasn't used to being around attractive people all the time.  He was pan and his best friends were Caitlin Snow, Ronnie Raymond, and Barry Allen who were all ridiculously attractive people.  The first time he saw Barry in the Flash suit?  Cisco had never felt so turned on.  (Though that one time he'd worked late with Hartley - getting that amazing view of Hartley bent over the lab table - and the time he'd walked in on Caitlin and Ronnie doing some heavy petting in Cait's office were both contenders for second and third place.)  But the thing was... he'd clicked with Caitlin and Barry in a platonic way that made the idea of being anything other than friends with them just... too weird to contemplate.  (Ronnie was another story, but he was Cait's and Cisco was not going there.  Ever.)

But just because Cisco wasn't interested in his friends as potential date mates didn't mean that he was any less turned on by them.  So he had a very healthy relationship with his right hand.

A 'relationship' that Cisco didn't really want Hartley waking up to hear.  Especially when it was Hartley who was the impetus for Cisco wanting to get himself off this evening.

Hoisting himself up to his feet, Cisco ran his hands through his own hair in frustration, then turned and collected the dessert plates.  The brownies had been every bit as amazing as Hartley's smirk had promised.  He'd made Hartley blush pretty hard, moaning over how amazing the brownie tasted.  (Literal and metaphorical moaning; Cisco was pretty sure this was the kind of food that the term food-gasm was coined to describe.)

In fact, the way Hartley had preened over Cisco's compliments had left Cisco with the sneaking suspicion that Hartley didn't actually get praised enough.  All that time Hartley had spent lording being Harrison Well's Chosen One over the rest of STAR Labs, yet he still got embarrassed over simple compliments about his baking skills?  Come to think of it... most of the praise he remembered Dr. Wells giving Hartley had occurred when Rathaway wasn't there to hear it.  And a lot of that still fell into the 'backhanded compliment' category.

That was an... unsettling thought.

There'd been a lot of reasons to be unsettled by Dr. Wells lately.

Cisco added the dessert plates to the dishwasher, then came back for the milk glasses.  His eyes, of course, flicking to the side occasionally to get another glimpse of the absolutely gorgeous man snoozing on his couch.  When he saw Hartley give a little shiver, Cisco set the glasses aside on the counter and fetched a blanket to drape over his sleeping guest.  Then, tentatively, Cisco slid the glasses off of Hartley's face, setting them on the side table.  Not once did Hartley stir.

Seemed the guy really needed the sleep.  Or... maybe he just felt safe here, in Cisco's apartment.

Which, he was safe.  Okay, so Cisco's arousal was probably a little unintentionally pervy, but he'd never, ever do anything to Hartley without the other man's consent and so long as Hartley was Cisco's guest, Cisco would try his best to protect him from anyone who would seek to do him harm.  Even if that person turned out to be Dr. Wells.

Padding away into his room, Cisco ran his fingers over the quilt on his bed - left a little messy as Cisco had been a rush that morning and neglected to pull the covers up - and wondered if maybe Hartley would want a Cisco original once he had a place of his own again.

Then again, probably not.  Hartley would want to end up working at Mercury Labs or someplace equally worthy of a physicist of Rathaway's skill and... well, why would he want any reminders of any of this?  He'd likely want to put STAR Labs and everyone associated with it behind him.  Assuming, of course, that Hartley had given up on taking his revenge on Wells.  (Cisco was pretty sure Hartley hadn't given up on vengeance... he just wasn't as hell bent on it as he'd been before the whole hiding from the Time Wraith debacle.)

Still... it wouldn't hurt to consider a design.  And Cisco had that 'Han Shot First' t-shirt somewhere in the quilt pile, having added it when the seam ripped halfway down the side when it got caught on some wiring earlier that year.  If nothing else, it might be worth seeing the look on Hartley's face when he saw the t-shirt patch on a quilt...

Something worth considering, anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Awww, Cisco wants to be Hartley's friend. (Homemade quilts are declarations of friendship. Weighted homemade quilts made to help combat anxiety? Those are declarations of love.) Also, the discussion here about Hartley's hearing? It'll come back up in the main fic... eventually.
> 
> Also, note about Hartley's backstory here. When Tommy showed up during Hartley's first round of homelessness, Hartley put pride first and had to have his arm metaphorically twisted before Tommy finally had his new roomie... here, history repeats only this time with Cisco being the one doing the metaphorical arm twisting. I don't know if it'll fit anywhere yet, but both Tommy and Cisco bribed Hartley with Thai food to achieve the feat of convincing Hartley to shut up and let someone else help him. In fact, Tommy's use of Thai food in convincing Hartley to accept his help is the very reason why it's Hartley's favorite food.
> 
> The next chapter will be concurrent with part of _Legends That Never Were_. More importantly...
> 
> Brownie recipe:  
> 3 oz chocolate  
> 6 tbsp butter  
> 2 eggs  
> 1 cup sugar  
> 1/2 cup flour  
> 1/2 tsp vanilla  
> 1/4 tsp salt  
> 1/4 tsp baking powder  
> 1/2 to 1 cup of white chocolate chips/crumbled toffee/butterscotch chips/whatever you feel like putting into the brownies
> 
> preheat the oven to 350 degrees F and grease an 8x8 pan  
> melt the chocolate + butter on the stove over medium-low heat (unless you are impatient and attentive enough not to burn the chocolate on higher heat settings) and set aside to cool when its evenly melted and mixed  
> mix the dry ingredients  
> add the eggs and vanilla and mix well  
> add the melted chocolate to the dry mix  
> add the extra stuff (white chocolate chips are my fav)  
> pour the brownie mix into the pan and bake for 25~30 min
> 
> When you test the brownies with a toothpick, there should be some clumping on the toothpick, but only a little... too much and the brownies will be too gooey instead of fudgey.
> 
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> 
> Well, about two thirds of the way through writing this chapter, I tripped and turned wrong to catch myself, resulting in a dislocated knee... that I had to shove back in place myself. It's left my knee really badly messed up and so slow to recover that even over two months later my knee is still slightly swollen and my range of motion is pretty limited. 
> 
> The injury has sapped my energy and messed with my stress levels, which in turn made my desire to write go pretty much non-existent for a while there. Even when I think I've finally gotten the fanfic bug back... it disappears again on bad days, taking forever to climb out once more (like a frightened groundhog in February).
> 
> I've actually had a dislocated knee before (other knee, nearly... oh, wow, slightly over a decade ago, I feel old now - also my family has a history of bad knees, genetics is definitely against me here) but it was a much less physically traumatic experience than this one has been, which has done my anxiety no favors because past experience tells me I should be so much better now even though logic tells me that all injuries are different and what I'm experiencing is perfectly normal for the higher level of physical trauma to my knee this time. (Screw logic, I wanna feel better.)
> 
> But, I am improving. Slower than I'd like, but progress is clearly being made and that's really helping to improve my emotional health too. ... I just have to accept slow progress on everything for now, including fanfic updates.
> 
> (Also, lesson to take away - be very careful how you try to catch yourself during a fall because doing it wrong can cause more damage than letting yourself hit the floor.)


End file.
